Resources
Overview This is a collection of links, electronic resources, and other information useful to those studying Wakashan languages. See also the bibliography page. First Nations and First Nations organizations * Coastal First Nations (including Haisla, Heiltsukv, and Wuikinuxv) * Ditidaht First Nation * Dzawada'enuxw First Nation * Haisla First Nation * Heiltsukv First Nation * Hupacasath First Nation * Huu-ay-aht First Nation * Kyuquot/Cheklesaht First Nation * Makah Cultural and Research Center * Makah Tribe * Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation * Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council * Pacheedaht First Nation News, Listings, and Resources * Taking Back Our Culture * Toquaht First Nation * Tseshaht First Nation * Ucluelet First Nation * U'mista Cultural Centre * Wuikinuxv Treaty Educational institutions * BC School District 49 (Central Coast, including Bella Bella and Rivers Inlet) * BC School District 62 (Sooke, including Port Renfrew) * BC School District 70 (Port Alberni, including Ditidaht and southern Nuu-chah-nulth communities) * BC School District 72 (Campbell River, including Liǧwiłdaʔx̌w communities) * BC School District 82 (Coast Mountains, including Kitimaat Village) * BC School District 84 (Vancouver Island West, including many Nuu-chah-nulth communities) * BC School District 85 (Vancouver Island North, including many Kwakwaka'wakw communities) * Cape Flattery School District (includes Neah Bay) * North Island College (Vancouver Island) * Northwest Indian College (Washington and Idaho) * University of British Columbia Linguistics * University of Northern British Columbia * University of Victoria Linguistics * University of Washington Linguistics * Vancouver Island College Other links * British Columbia Geographical Names Information System * The Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA) * Ethnologue * First Peoples' Cultural Foundation (FPCF) * First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Council (FPHLCC) * First Peoples' Language Map of British Columbia * FirstVoices * The International Phonetic Association (IPA) * The International Standards Organization (ISO) * Kitimat Museum and Archives * Languagegeek * The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) * The Linguist List * Royal British Columbia Museum * The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) * Strengthening Indigenous Languages and Cultures (SILC) * Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) * Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room (placenames, etc.) * University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology * University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics * University of Washington, American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection * University of Washington, Burke Museum * University of Washington, Melville Jacobs Collection * Yinka Déné Language Institute Conferences The most important conferences for the study of Wakashan languages are the International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, and, more recently, the Wakashan Language Conference (see below). Several other regular conferences have a whole or partial focus on North American languages, but few have permanent websites: * The Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA) Conference * Giving the Gift of Language (GTOL) * The Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) * Semantics of Under-represented Languages in the Americas (SULA) * The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) Meeting * Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium (SILS) * Workshop on American Indian Languages (WAIL) * Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas (WSCLA) The Wakashan Language Conference The Wakashan Language Conference (WLC) has been held twice so far, in 2004 and 2006, when it was called the Wakashan Linguistics Conference. At WLC 2 in 2006, the participants voted to rename the conference the Wakashan Language Conference. The International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages The International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages (ICSNL) has been held every year since 1966. Originally called the International Conference on Salish(an) Languages (ICSL), it got its present name in 1983. Fonts Computer fonts are a particular problem for those working on Wakashan languages. Whereas Wakashan languages typically use more than forty consonants, the English alphabet has only twenty-one consonant letters. Therefore, writing Wakashan languages requires either special spelling conventions, or special symbols. Wakashan alphabets with special symbols require, in turn, special fonts for word processing and printing. We highly recommend that anyone processing Wakashan languages by computer use only Unicode fonts, and convert any old materials that were entered in legacy fonts to Unicode. We recommend SIL's Charis font, which is free, is easy to read, and supports italics and boldface. Legacy fonts Until recently, the need for special symbols for processing Wakashan languages by computer was usually met with custom-designed fonts that replaced normal symbols with special symbols. For example, symbols for glottalized sounds like p̓ t̓ c̓ k̓ q̓ might take the place of capital letters (P T C K Q), and the barred lambda (ƛ) might take the place of z or R. Such custom fonts are now called legacy fonts. Legacy fonts have several problems. First, the replaced symbols cannot be used. Second, converting legacy text into another font makes it unreadable. Third, a single document would typically require at least two fonts. But the most serious problem has to do with long-term compatibility. If the legacy font is lost, or, inevitably, becomes incompatible with new software, then the legacy text that was written using that font becomes unusable. Many different legacy fonts have been used to write Wakashan languages, but some of the more common ones are Myroman, Nootkan Std SIL Doulos, Nuu-chah-nulth (w-coast.ttf), Nuu2, and SIL Doulos IPA 93. Unicode Unicode was created in response to problems with legacy fonts. Unicode is not a font, but an international standard for converting the symbols of all the world's languages into computer codes. For example, the barred lambda (ƛ) is assigned the code 019B, and the glottal stop (ʔ) is 0294. Every Unicode font then interprets 0294 as ʔ, and 019B as ƛ. As a result, text written using any Unicode font can be converted into any other Unicode font, and still be readable. An entire document can be written in a single font, even if it includes special symbols. And most importantly, information coded in Unicode will remain readable far into the future. For these reasons, it is highly recommended that anyone processing Wakashan languages by computer use only Unicode fonts, and that any old materials written using legacy fonts be recorded as soon as possible using a Unicode font. For up-to-date information on Unicode, see the site of the International Standards Organization. Downloading fonts Two good sources of free, supported Unicode fonts are Language Geek and the Summer Institute of Linguistics]. In addition, Microsoft Windows typically comes with at least one Unicode font, Lucida Sans Unicode, which is not very attractive, but can easily be converted later into any other Unicode font. * Aboriginal Serif (Language Geek) * Charis SIL * Doulos SIL Installing fonts on your computer * Installing Fonts (Language Geek)